


Send Me Back

by doublydaring



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Fix-It, M/M, Reunions, sort of!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-29
Updated: 2019-01-29
Packaged: 2019-10-18 17:05:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17584841
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublydaring/pseuds/doublydaring
Summary: “I'm really sorry sir, I can't in good conscious. Last time we hooked you up to the drive you…” Tilly gulps, “Well sir, you died.” Despite saying this she does pull a canister of spores from the wall behind her but she doesn't put it into the apparatus at her station. “To be completely honest I don't really understand how you did survive. In fact, I can say with some certainty you shouldn't have.”





	Send Me Back

“Lieutenant Stamets,” he can hear Tilly's voice lilting through the reinforced plexus glass of the spore chamber but he isn't listening. Tilly, for all her subtle glories, is not known for her brevity and so Stamets had mastered the art of selectively tuning her out. This was beside the point because at this moment he only has eyes for one. As Paul Stamets emerges for the mycelial network the image of Hugh Culber is the last thing he sees. For a moment it's like looking in a mirror. The pain in Hugh's eyes is the same as his, the silent cry from beyond, but more than that is the same ineffable love that radiates between them. 

Stamets’ feels a terrible rasping breath course through him as he regains consciousness but it doesn't register, nothing does. Tilly watches in shock from her station as the Lieutenant, back from the brink of death mere moments ago, presses a steady hand against the door exits the chamber and walks with an undeniable purpose right up to her. Stamets speaks with a vindication Tilly has never seen from anyone, his eyes are clearer than they've ever been.

“Send me back,” Stamets says it like an official degree. Tilly has been receiving orders from him for quite some time, she'd been screamed at in times of crisis by the man before her but never had she felt so compelled to comply. Stamets has an air about him, a desperation, a need, that Tilly can feel. It radiates off him in waves.

Hugh

Hugh

Hugh

“I'm really sorry sir, I can't in good conscious. Last time we hooked you up to the drive you…” Tilly gulps, “Well sir, you died.” Despite saying this she does pull a canister of spores from the wall behind her but she doesn't put it into the apparatus at her station. “To be completely honest I don't really understand how you did survive. In fact, I can say with some certainty you shouldn't have.” 

Lieutenant Stamets’ eyes bore into her as he slams a tight fist against the wall of the chamber. 

“Send me back.” His voice is cold, not devoid of emotion, overflowing with feeling beyond anything that Tilly has ever experienced. So she sighs, a long deep sigh, one Stamets’ would have been proud of and mounted the canister. Going through the motions, she can see Stamets approach and enter the spore chamber out of the corner of her eye as she initiated the locking mechanism as she has so many times before. When she looks up at him again the expression on his face is so gut-wrenching she has to suppress a sob as she pulls a lever and the spores flood the chamber.

It's a familiar feeling now, the cold incongruous wave of mycelium spores passing over him. Perhaps it should be comforting by now, having felt it so many times but Stamets was like one of Pavlov's dogs, he knew the pain that followed. Stamets takes a deep breath and as the spores enter his lungs the scene changes.

He's still on the Discovery but it's quiet. Quieter than it should ever be. On his first day Stamets had been too preoccupied with the excitement of being on such a state of the art spaceship to notice but that night as he lay down to rest he heard it. A constant hum, not just electronics that flowed through the ship like a nervous system but the 100 odd crew members in constant motion, busy bees. This noise is gone now, not just the noise of the people but of the ship's systems too. The Discovery he is on is dead, an empty shell floating in space. 

He's sitting on the floor, he feels smooth cold metal against his hands. He's in his quarters. Their quarters. Then it hits him again.

Hugh

Hugh

Hugh

As if this droning thought were broadcasted over the ship's intercoms he hears a voice in a distant empty hallway.

“Paul?” Hugh's voice is barely an echo across the vast expanse of the empty ship. “Paul?” It's the voice of a ghost and Stamets knows that, but he was here with him just moments ago.

He saw Hugh.

He spoke to Hugh.

He felt Hugh.

He needed that again. The hallways are uninviting. The brushed steel that covers almost all of the twisting tunnels within the Discovery is harsh in the flickering fluorescent light. Just when he thinks he is lost Stamets catches the slightest glimpse of a pristine white uniform turning a corner. It's distressing to long for something so strongly that is just out of your reach.

He knows he will catch up eventually, calling out. “Hugh!” His voice sounds as empty as the dispassionate mass of pathways he's been wandering for a time that, if told, he would believe to be both 15 minutes and two days. “Hugh!”

Finally, he turns to face him after an unendurable game of cat and mouse. He smiles and everything fades. The lights stop flickering and Stamets is filled with a hope he hasn't felt in years. Hugh stands in a doorway, a gorgeous silhouette backlit by the harsh light of the medical bay. He silently extends a hand toward Stamets. When he takes it Hugh’s hand is warm, he feels alive. 

“My love.” Hugh’s voice is soft and Stamets’ eyes well up with tears. “I missed you, Paul.”

“I missed you too.” They pull each other close. Always synchronized. Hugh, buries his face in Paul's chest. Paul presses a kiss to the top of his head. When Hugh look back up there are tears in his eyes.

“You can't be here,” his voice, ever steady, falters. “Paul it isn't right.”

“Why not?”

“You should never have found this place, I'm gone You have to move on.”

“You're not gone,” Paul grabs him by the back of his arms and pulls him close, their foreheads together, faces just inches apart. “You're here, with me.” 

“But it isn't real.”

“Why not?” Paul kisses him hard both hands on the back of his head and Hugh can't help but lean into it. “Who says this isn't real. This feels pretty goddamn real to me.”

Hugh just shakes his head tears now streaming down his face.

“I don't know Paul, I was never a crazy genius like you,” Paul smiles “I just went to school because I wanted to help people. So if I know you sure as hell know, that I'm dead and there isn't anything either of us can so about that.”

“But there is!” Paul is incessant with both hands on Hugh's chest. “I fixed it, why can't you let me fix this?”

“There are people who need you back there, Tilly and Michael.” Hugh presses a shaking hand up against the side of Paul's face, grounding him. The slow circles of Hugh's fingertips against his skin calms Paul and his eyes clear.

“Not as much as I need you.” His voice is quiet and genuine. Hugh curls his fingers into the fine hair on the back of his head and pulls Paul towards him. Kissing him. Hugh laughs and it's sad but filled with relief.

“I tried didn't I,” he whispers, putting little kisses up and down Paul's jaw. “I tried to get you to do the right thing.”

“This is the right thing.” Paul runs his hands down the soft material of Hugh's jacket to his hips. “I've never been more sure of anything in my life.”


End file.
